Archive for August 4th, 2014

Hunting: Dove Season Forecast 2014

Monday, August 4th, 2014

Hunting dove in Texas

David L. Yoes of Coppell Tx is hunting dove in Hays county.


This is Passport to Texas

Despite exceptional drought along the Red River in North Central Texas and the extreme Panhandle, ample spring rains elsewhere promise good dove hunting this season.

14— Last year at this time about 45% of the state was either in an extreme or exceptional drought. [When] we get to those levels we see large-scale [negative] changes with habitat. And this year, we’re only at about 20%; so we’ve had a lot more precipitation around the state.

Biologist Shaun Oldenburger says the season includes mourning and white-winged dove—but don’t expect to hunt them in the same place.

08—With white-winged dove, over 90% of our white-winged doves in the state of Texas breed in suburban or urban locations compared to most of our mourning doves which tend to be more rural.

For white-winged dove, consider setting up in grain fields and pastures nearby urban and suburban areas…

15— …that may have good croton, or sunflower crops and then vetch, pigweed – stuff like that. For mourning dove, we look for perching habitat, we look for water and we look for food. And if you have a combination of those things, you usually can have a fairly decent hunt in those types of locations.

Find more information about dove season on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series; it’s funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motorboat fuel.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.